San Sebastián

[margo2011]

Hi sorry if this is not the appropriate place to ask this but although I have been on the site several years I struggle to use it .

We are on the quest on august 30th and we’re wondering if anyone has arranged a visit from St Jean de lux to st Sebastian.

We have done this via Bilbao previously .

Also we have tried calling Azamara  to book the speciality restaurants but can’t get through ,the website says you can book online but we haven’t been able to .

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

thanks 

[Riocca]

21 minutes ago, margo2011 said:

Hi sorry if this is not the appropriate place to ask this but although I have been on the site several years I struggle to use it .

We are on the quest on august 30th and we’re wondering if anyone has arranged a visit from St Jean de lux to st Sebastian.

We have done this via Bilbao previously .

Also we have tried calling Azamara  to book the speciality restaurants but can’t get through ,the website says you can book online but we haven’t been able to .

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

thanks 

Have you looked at the Roll Call for this cruise? It’s been quite active by Azamara standards with tours being arranged there might be something that works for you. 

As regards speciality restaurants reservations can only be made once onboard there’s a desk set up in Windows Cafe, possibly on embarkation day there will be another desk on deck 5. 
You are able to purchase dining packages pre cruise but not make specific reservations.

[crzrr]

I can't answer the question about San Sebastian but can answer the specialty restaurant question.  You can't make reservations in the specialty restaurants until you are onboard.  It's usually the first thing that we do once we get onboard.

[margo2011]

Thank you for your kind replies will do .

[Baynanno1]

Good luck actually getting ashore at St Jean de Luz!

 

We have not been able to go ashore on three cruises that were to stop there. Still hope to get there one day.

 

Two did not stop and the third should not have stopped. The tender boat was moving a metre or more in and out from the tender platform in a very heavy swell. It took a very long time to load and several of the first aboard were unwell by the time the tender left the side of the ship. There were also some injuries during boarding. Tender operations were stopped and I think we may have gone to Bayonne to pick up those who had gone ashore.

 

I would be looking at going to San Sebastian again from Bilbao, which we have done with an excellent guide through Tours by Locals.

[tgg]

15 hours ago, Baynanno1 said:

Good luck actually getting ashore at St Jean de Luz!

 

We have not been able to go ashore on three cruises that were to stop there. Still hope to get there one day.

 

Two did not stop and the third should not have stopped. The tender boat was moving a metre or more in and out from the tender platform in a very heavy swell. It took a very long time to load and several of the first aboard were unwell by the time the tender left the side of the ship. There were also some injuries during boarding. Tender operations were stopped and I think we may have gone to Bayonne to pick up those who had gone ashore.

 

I would be looking at going to San Sebastian again from Bilbao, which we have done with an excellent guide through Tours by Locals.

 

I guess we were lucky because we got ashore in St. Jean de Luz. We had a small group from the roll call book a guide through Tours By Locals.  What an adventure.  Not only did we get to Bilbao, we also got to see a private eating club in San Sebastian because the guide was a member.  This was a total surprise for our happy little group. Our guide's name was Iker B.

[manc]

We had to dock at Bayonne, a shuttle bus dropped us at the bus station so we could catch a bus stop to St Jean de Luz.

[bontemps1]

We have a tour booked from Bilbao to San Sebastian with an Azamara excursion.  We really would prefer to go to the various Tapas Bars on our own rather than a restaurant or eating club,  I was hoping to just tell the tour operator that we would meet up with him/her later.  Do you know if anyone from your tour did this?  Do you think it's possible?

[tgg]

54 minutes ago, bontemps1 said:

We have a tour booked from Bilbao to San Sebastian with an Azamara excursion.  We really would prefer to go to the various Tapas Bars on our own rather than a restaurant or eating club,  I was hoping to just tell the tour operator that we would meet up with him/her later.  Do you know if anyone from your tour did this?  Do you think it's possible?

 

If you book with Tours By Locals, you can custom design your excursion and do exactly what you want. We've booked with them for years.

[bontemps1]

5 hours ago, tgg said:

 

If you book with Tours By Locals, you can custom design your excursion and do exactly what you want. We've booked with them for years.

Thank You.  I will look them up.

[TERRIER1]

21 hours ago, bontemps1 said:

We have a tour booked from Bilbao to San Sebastian with an Azamara excursion.  We really would prefer to go to the various Tapas Bars on our own rather than a restaurant or eating club,  I was hoping to just tell the tour operator that we would meet up with him/her later.  Do you know if anyone from your tour did this?  Do you think it's possible?

We went on our own. We took the bus (PESA) from the Bilboa bus station to San Sebastian. The ride goes along the coast and mountains and was beautiful. It took about 75 minutes and the bus left every 30/60 minutes depending on time of day. We purchased the tickets round trip at the bus station and you do get assigned seats. We were on a Oceania trp and the ship didn't leave until 11 pm that day so we got to see Bilboa as well as eat tapas in San Sebastian. We never made it into St Luz the next day due to swells on the water so we are glad we did this excursion on the Bilboa day.

Edited August 14, 2022 by TERRIER1

[margo2011]

On 8/12/2022 at 11:34 PM, Baynanno1 said:

Good luck actually getting ashore at St Jean de Luz!

 

We have not been able to go ashore on three cruises that were to stop there. Still hope to get there one day.

 

Two did not stop and the third should not have stopped. The tender boat was moving a metre or more in and out from the tender platform in a very heavy swell. It took a very long time to load and several of the first aboard were unwell by the time the tender left the side of the ship. There were also some injuries during boarding. Tender operations were stopped and I think we may have gone to Bayonne to pick up those who had gone ashore.

 

I would be looking at going to San Sebastian again from Bilbao, which we have done with an excellent guide through Tours by Locals.

Hi , can I ask what month were you cruising?

[bontemps1]

1 hour ago, TERRIER1 said:

We went on our own. We took the bus (PESA) from the Bilboa bus station to San Sebastian. The ride goes along the coast and mountains and was beautiful. It took about 75 minutes and the bus left every 30/60 minutes depending on time of day. We purchased the tickets round trip at the bus station and you do get assigned seats. We were on a Oceania trp and the ship didn't leave until 11 pm that day so we got to see Bilboa as well as eat tapas in San Sebastian. We never made it into St Luz the next day due to swells on the water so we are glad we did this excursion on the Bilboa day.

Thanks for the info.  Appreciate it.

[Baynanno1]

9 hours ago, margo2011 said:

Hi , can I ask what month were you cruising?

 

One of the three was August 2014. We are away from home at the moment, but I will endeavour to let you know the others later in the week.

[margo2011]

On 8/14/2022 at 11:12 PM, Baynanno1 said:

 

One of the three was August 2014. We are away from home at the moment, but I will endeavour to let you know the others later in the week.

Thank you ,just wondering if the high tides were due to winter months .

Hopefully we will be lucky .

[Baynanno1]

On 8/17/2022 at 2:26 AM, margo2011 said:

Thank you ,just wondering if the high tides were due to winter months .

Hopefully we will be lucky .

 

High or low tide should not be a problem, the problem tendering at any port is whether the sea is calm or not. If there is anything like a 3 metre swell, tendering becomes quite dangerous!

[Baynanno1]

On 8/13/2022 at 11:45 PM, tgg said:

 

I guess we were lucky because we got ashore in St. Jean de Luz. We had a small group from the roll call book a guide through Tours By Locals.  What an adventure.  Not only did we get to Bilbao, we also got to see a private eating club in San Sebastian because the guide was a member.  This was a total surprise for our happy little group. Our guide's name was Iker B.

 

I absolutely agree, Iker was probably one of, if not the best guide we have ever had.

 

But, he met us in Bilbao as booked and drove straight to San Sebastian, his home town. In all we had a 9½ hour day, with the majority of the time in and around San Sebastian, not the 8½ we expected.

We did indeed, among many other things visit Iker's men's club (where women are banned from the kitchen).

Photo attached of our group at the club including Don & Alice, Linda & Mary, me between Alice and yourself and John opposite Peter.

Iker also demonstrated his skill, pouring from a height without spilling a drop.

 

[tgg]

Hi Trish,

 

It was an amazing day. So surprised to see the picture of all of us. Thanks for posting it and bring back memories of a great day ashore.

 

Toni